The Idiot's Lantern

"Is it conceivable that we world citizens of the twentieth century are not the only living beings of our kind in the cosmos?" "wrote" Erich von Daniken in his 1970s bestselling "book" Chariots of the Gods, a treatise on ancient astronauts visiting Earth who are so far advanced beyond our puny evolution that that erect massive edifices that exist to this day and yet leave no other concrete evidence of their visitation. Now that's advanced! The 1970s gave rise to a whole kittenkaboodle of wacky ancient astronaut theories and sagas (see also: Battlestar Galactica), a mythos of highly-advanced, smarter-than-us aliens visiting Earth to give us cool presents and then zipping away (see also: this summer's Indiana Jones and the Adventure of the Greasy Kid Sidekick with The Dandruff-Flecked Comb) into the cosmos, no doubt feeling really darn smug with themselves for being so far above us on the evolutionary ladder. Yet another misconception we can lay firmly at the feet of the 1970s, which gave us such crackpot additions to this suspect "science" as Rod Serling's In Search of the Ancient Astronauts, Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery, and John Denver's Annie's Song.

Leave it then, to the fine and clear-visioned folks at The Marvel Bullpen to remind us that aliens aren't elitist snobs with IQs in the four digits or technological wizards intent on handing over maps of the stars via the medium of cornfields. No, aliens, even in the 1970s, are jus' plain folks, just like us, and they like the same things we do: Big Macs, amusement parks, the music of Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. What else do they like that we do? Why, let's find out through the magic of 1970s comic books, shall we?:



For those of you not familiar with one of the more...shall we say, unusual members of the Fantastic Four's supporting cast, that's not Zippy the Pinhead after being exposed to gamma rays, but the one, the only Impossible Man, shape-changing alien from the planet Poppup (no doubt ruled over by King Sa-Booda). He...er...pops up occasionally to annoy the FF, but it wasn't until his extended guest-starring status in the book in 1977 that "Impy" discovers...and becomes addicted to...one of the finest entertainments the Earth has to offer: television:



Looks like ABC's Tuesday night line-up is popular in the Richards household with small green aliens, and no surprise: Happy Days was one of the blockbuster television hits of the 1970s, riveting millions of Fonzie-loving Americans to their tube each week for the wacky antics of a family living in the happy carefree Milkwaukee of the 1950s, a time and town apparently unaffected by McCarthyism, the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement, the Korean War or the Suez Crisis. But hey, they had hamburger stands and sock hops and friendly motorcycle greasers with magic powers over jukeboxes.

Like the rest of America held thrall; 1970s Marvel Comics wasn't immune to the mass appeal of Richie and his pals (see, f'r example, today's Armagideon Time post). Their love for all things Fonzarelli even becomes an advertising slogan:



To zoom in on the pertinent bit:



Which is not to say that the Impossible Man only watched cheery sitcoms about the 1950s, or that he watched TV all on his lonesome, oh no no no. Sitting around the boob tube is clearly a social activity in the Baxter Building, and although I'm not certain whether they're watching the second season on ABC or the third season on NBC, here's Impy and his pals the Human Torch, Tigra, the Thing and Thundra enjoying the adventures of Jaime Sommers, in quite possibly the only instance of Marvel featuring a character who appeared in comics published by Charlton:



A couple issues later, the TV party has dwindled down to Impy and Thundra, who've switched the station to what must be WOR's Million Dollar Movie...
...and at least they're watching (in between the Crazy Eddie commercials) a Hollywood film noir classic:



In fact, the Impossible Man becomes quite the fan of that particular actor:



That's not to say, of course, that the Impossible Man has become a TV addicted couch potato. For one thing, he frequently levitates off the couch while watching television. And when, in this pre-cable era, the end of our broadcasting day signals the close of Impy's entertainment, why, he takes it in stride and behaves like any logical and cultured advanced alien being would:




In these modern days, you or I would just slip in a DVD or surf digital cable channels. Impy takes a different approach to keep his entertainment goin':



Oh, that won't end well.

Luckily, our pal Ben Grimm is around to introduce an entirely new entertainment to the Impossible Man...movies!:





And that's how the Impossible Man discovered the finest that New York had to offer in 1970s movie-viewing entertainment:



But even though (as Hollywood likes to remind us) "movies are your best entertainment value," you can't keep a Poppupian away from his favorite medium:






So, in short: highly-advanced, mega-intelligent, super-poeered alien The Impossible Man likes TV.

But...there's an entertainment medium he loves even more than TV. Can you guess what it is? Huh, huh, can you? Aw, don't worry if you can't...I'll have the four-color answer right here tomorrow...same Imp Time, same Time Station!